Each case is tested in a stock configuration and an overclocked configuration that generates substantially more heat (and thus may produce more noise). The system is powered on and left idle for fifteen minutes, the thermal and acoustic results recorded, and then stressed by running seven threads in Prime95 (in-place large FFTs) on the CPU and OC Scanner (maximum load) on the GPU. At the end of fiteen minutes, thermal and acoustic results are recorded. This is done for the stock settings and for the overclock, and if the enclosure has a fan controller, these tests are repeated for each setting. Ambient temperature is also measured after the fifteen idle minutes but before the stress test and used to calculate the final reported results.

Thank You!

Before moving on, we'd like to thank the following vendors for providing us with the hardware used in our testbed.

Thank you to Puget Systems for providing us with the Intel Core i7-2700K.

Thank you to Gigabyte for providing us with the GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3 motherboard.

Sure, but at what point?If mATX, 1x 3.5" and 0x 5.25" are enough (2.5" can be put anywhere), you can seriously decrease the depth and height of the case without compromising integrity. As air has to travel less distance, cooling might actually be better.Reply